Letter: Approval of St. George proposal hurts children

Letter: Approval of St. George proposal hurts children

When we pave a road, we don’t pave only the spot in front of the wealthy home, and then skip the portion in front of the poorer person’s home. If nothing else, the rich guy wouldn’t like what the rough portion of the road did to the undercarriage of his expensive car! Taxes are paid according to income, but the service purchased from tax monies benefit the entire community. That is how it is meant to be.

People trying to create a new city, or rather a new, separate school district, St. George, want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to reap all the taxpayers’ benefits of the parish, police, fire department, road repair, water service, etc., but they want to withdraw their education taxes to fund what is essentially a private school system.

Catholics send their children to private Catholic schools, paying tuition to the school, and they pay taxes to educate the rest of the population. Some grumbled about that, but they still had to pay their taxes. That’s their choice, as they could choose to use the public education.

If the people of the “St. George district” want private education for their children, they can send their children to private schools or use their wealth to build their own private “neighborhood” school. But they should not be taking a public high school away from other children, and they should not be exempt from paying taxes to the public schools system.